"Americanos" aims for accurate portrayal of Latinos' diverse roles in the United States

A woman stands in a shadow behind a fence lined with colorful brooms, brooms that she has sold outside her Los Angeles home for nearly twenty years. She's a single face belonging to a community of faces, one story belonging to a larger story. It's a story that lifts the shadow off Latino culture, bringing into focus a community that embodies the American spirit. [Read article]

Incest, lust, nudity, necrophilia and a nasty beheading aren't usually what first come to mind when one thinks of opera. And for good reason. No one wants society ladies fainting off their chairs. But "Salome," a passionate opera by Richard Strauss based on the play by Oscar Wilde, broke all taboos when it was first performed. Almost one hundred years later, the Arizona Opera presents a production of this still-controversial opera at the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall, Jan 17-19. [Read article]

Best Motion Picture
About Schmidt ÷ I saw a preview for this film and left the theatre with the feeling that no one in the audience got it except for me. Now months later it is all the rage to complement Jack Nicholson's character portrayal in this very simple but very powerful film. To me it is subtle humor and emotion at its best, leaving us all wanting more from our own lives. [Read article]

The best way to get an idea of the film "Rabbit-Proof Fence" would be to start at the movie's end. Two elderly aboriginal women take an afternoon stroll through a desert on deliberately realistic-looking home video, talking quietly in their native tongue. As the music swells, their names appear in simple white lettering beneath their images.

We thereby discover that the movie we have just watched is a true story, and as the credits roll we ponder the weight of it and perhaps cry. At least, that's the theory. [Read article]

With Hollywood so desperate for solid, original scripts, the majority of what hits the screen is more often than not a story based upon a book. But sometimes books are too quiet to be movies, full of soft insights yet little plot movement.

When screenwriter Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich") was commissioned to adapt Susan Orlean's best selling novel "The Orchid Thief" into a script, not only did he discover that it was one of those cases, but he became obsessed with his inability to adapt the highly passionate, beautiful but slow-moving book. [Read article]

Once you hit 20 you are old. Face it. Responsibility is not just unloading the dishwasher or straightening up your room anymore. Another sort of "cleaning" seems inevitable, and it has to do with organizing your life.

"Regeneration: Telling Stories From Our Twenties," by Jennifer Karlin and Amelia Borofsky, is a book of short stories, poems, photographs and paintings. During a time when change is your permanence, expression through art is called for in every medium. [Read article]